


Light Is the Heart

by agentx13



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Royalty AU, sequel to heavy is the head, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: Steve grimaces. “Sorry. I meant to surprise you.”She’s too busy being happy to care. “I get to raise a little queen?” she whispers.
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	Light Is the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> For capsharons, who wanted a Steve/Sharon royalty AU. Since I had Heavy Is the Head but had always intended to write a sequel, I thought that it might be a good time to do a small little follow-up to that story.

“There she is,” Steve says. It takes several seconds for it to register. “Everything’s okay,” he tells her. “You’re going to be okay.”

“’Course I am,” she slurs. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She tries to sit up, but her arms feel like liquid. Her breath catches.

“You’re fine,” Steve says quickly. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

That’s true. She knows it’s true. But she also can clearly see she’s in a hospital bed. “What-” Her eyes widen. “Oh.” She looks at her stomach. It’s still swollen, but not _as_ swollen. And she can’t feel the baby. She’s felt him – or her – within her for so long. She covers her mouth with a hand to stifle any sound, and she reflexively tries to hide her emotions. No one appreciates a hysterical queen.

“She’s fine,” Steve says quickly. “They took her for another check-up and weigh-in.”

Sharon turns breathless. “She?”

Steve grimaces. “Sorry. I meant to surprise you.”

She’s too busy being happy to care. “I get to raise a little queen?” she whispers.

“No rush on the queen part,” Steve tells her. He shifts his grip on her hand, and she feels its warmth. He looks away, and Sharon hears May talking about doctors. Steve nods and leans forward to kiss Sharon’s temple. “I’m just glad you’re all right,” he says. “Both of you.”

* * *

She finds out later that she hemorrhaged during labor. It takes time to heal, and she spends much of the time in the hospital, bonding with her daughter and giving Steve a hard time over how overprotective he is. It’s worse than she’d anticipated, and things are more than a little frosty between them when he catches her trying to walk to the bathroom on her own.

After that, only bodyguards who aren’t cowed by Sharon’s attitude are allowed to watch over her.

She hadn’t particularly enjoyed her pregnancy, but she decides the worst part in healing from the labor.

Still, when she looks at her daughter, she can’t say she minds. Maybe she’d even do it again.

Just not anytime soon.

* * *

They introduce their daughter to the public. Elizabeth Sarah Margaret. Ellie for short. Sharon has to fight not to cry when the people roar their approval. In the five years since the attempted Hydra coup, the economy had stabilized and then kept going. Education was high. Poverty and homelessness were low. With Betsy Ross and Helen Cho, healthcare was making huge strides all around the world. Stark’s clean energy methods were helping to stabilize climate and were on track to reverse the effects of global warming in the next five years.

She knows people are only happy with her because they’re hopeful about their own futures. She doesn’t listen to anyone who says differently, and she keeps working to make sure she deserves her people’s approval.

But she won’t lie. Feeling as if her people approve of her while she’s holding her daughter on the balcony, Steve at her side, is one of her happiest and most cherished memories.

* * *

Sharon doesn’t approve of all of Steve’s parenting decisions. He doesn’t approve of all of hers. They are not shy about expressing their opinions. Public school v private. Should they board? How to facilitate Ellie’s approved interests? What does “approved” mean?

She realizes how much her parents had screwed her over while she was growing up. How feeling like she’d never been good enough affected her. Steve realizes that he’d always been the parent to his sick mom and that children are different.

They do the best they can. They both take advice from James and Natasha – often on the sly – and Ellie seems to grow up well-adjusted, playing sports at her school and tagging along with Sharon while she does her duties. Sharon always tries to explain what she’s doing and why and hopes she isn’t turning Ellie away from taking the crown one day.

Although there’s another fight when Steve suggests Ellie get a job.

* * *

Ellie gets qualities from both her parents. This is often seen as a good thing. She is responsible, protective, and considerate. It is sometimes seen as a bad thing. She is just as stubborn, if not more so, than either of her parents. 

It may or may not help that Ellie now has three younger siblings. Nearly all of whom have more freedom than she does, intentionally or no. Or at least, that’s how Ellie see it. After all, none of them are due to inherit the crown.

Beth is the one who suggests that this is a wonderful opportunity to teach Ellie about diplomacy. This also means Sharon has to be diplomatic.

Despite the odds, it works.

With mixed success, but still.

* * *

Somehow, the idea started that when Ellie turns eighteen, Sharon and Steve will let her run the country in the summer. Sharon thinks she’s joking at first, though she doesn’t say so out loud, but Ellie does well in school, does her schoolwork and chores, and then joins Sharon and Steve the rest of the day and most weekends to study how they work and make decisions. Sharon actually starts to worry that her daughter needs to do more fun things and go out with friends, but Ellie is determined. She argues that Sharon herself doesn’t have any friends outside the palace and family.

Sharon can’t argue with that, but she's quietly pleased that James and Natasha start a transfer program that coincidentally gets people Ellie’s age to her school and introduces her to new blood.

The summer Ellie turns eighteen, Sharon and Steve take a series of diplomatic trips and leave May with Ellie. The arrangement works well enough that Ellie convinces them to keep doing it.

* * *

By the time Ellie is in her thirties and starting her own family, Sharon can’t deny it anymore. She’s no longer necessary as queen.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Ellie says. She drops heavily into a chair as Sharon cradles her first grandchild. “But maybe you don’t have to do it all on your own? Like how I can’t be a mother on my own. I might need your help here.”

“You will,” Sharon assures her. “You and your siblings were worth it, but even the children we love can be little shits sometimes.” She coos at the baby in her arms. “Can you say ‘little shit?’”

“Mum!”

“Oh, relax. He won’t be able to say it for a couple more weeks at least.” She gently shakes her hair in his face just enough to tickle. “Because we’re going to work on it together, aren’t we? Yes, we are!”

“Mum!”

Sharon makes a face at her. “Maybe it isn’t necessary for me to do so much on my own, then,” she muses. “And not forever, either. Maybe your father and I could take a diplomatic trip to Antigua. Get some skimpy bathing suits...”

“ _Mum._ That’s it. Give me back my son before you give him ideas!”

* * *

In the end, Sharon _does_ retire early, and with no regrets. The kingdom is in good hands with the rest of her family. She and Steve devote their time to being grandparents and great-grandparents after that, working with charities and taking trips.

They’re lucky. She knows they’re lucky. She loves and is loved. And every time she rejoins her growing family on the balcony, she knows that the world is a little bit better because she helped make it that way.


End file.
